The Arctic is drastically changing due to Climate Change

#EnvironmentAndClimateChange; #EcoWatch; #Arctic; #NOOA; #GlobalWarming
​
Alaska (US)/Canadian-Media: Global warming is rapidly changing the Arctic into a region that is, "warmer, less frozen, and biologically changed in ways that are scarcely imaginable even a generation ago," according to NOAA's annual Arctic report card, released on Dec 8, EcoWatch News reports said.

The Arctic is becoming "warmer, less frozen, and biologically changed in ways that are scarcely imaginable even a generation ago," according to NOAA's annual Arctic report card. NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory/ YouTube

That description, from Rick Thoman, a University of Alaska scientist and one of the editors of the assessment, describes not just the region's dramatic loss of sea ice, but also its soaring temperatures and the wildfires that burned an estimated 23 million acres across Siberia.

As global warming caused by burning fossil fuels heats the planet, it has an outsized impact on the Arctic, which in turn has an outsized impact on the rest of the globe.

"Changes in the Arctic climate are important because the Arctic acts as a refrigerator for the rest of the world — it helps cool the planet," Lawrence Mudryk, a report contributor and a climate scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, told The Associated Press. "How much of the Arctic continues to be covered by snow and sea ice reflects part of how efficiently that refrigerator is working."